Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1887-01-13

however, dlsSembled so far as to ask:
"But will she not knowT'
"She is child"
| "But will she not talky'
| mot if l say nay, and if thou-eh, Miguel."
This bit of 1attery (which, by the way, was
| lie, for Victor's niece did not incline favor
ably to Miguel had its effect. They shook
| hands over the table. "But," said Miguel,
what is to be done must be done now" "At
the moment" said Victor, sand thou shall see
it done. Eh? Does it content thee! Then
| comer'
! Miguel nodded to Manuel. "We will re-
turn in an hour; waitthou here"
| They filed out into the dark, irregular street
Fate led them to pass the office of Dr. Guild
at the moment that Concho mounted his
horse. The shadows concealed them from
their rival, but they overheard the last in
| functions of the president to the unlucky Con-
| cho
'Thou hearest!" said Miguel, clutching his
companions arm
"Yes," said Victor. "But let him ride, my
friend; in one hour we shall have that that
shall arrive years before him." and with a
complacent chuckle they passed unseen and
unheard until, abruptly turning a corner,
they stopped before adobe house
1t had once been a somewhat pretentious
dwelling, but had evidently followed the for.
tunes of its late owner, Don Juan Briones,
who had offered it as a last sop to the three
headed Cerberns that guarded the Ell Refugio
Plutonean treasures and who had swallowed
it in single gup 1t was in very bad case
The furTows of its red-tiled roof looked as if
they were the results of age and decrepitude
Its best room had musty smell; there was
the dampness of deliquescence in its SLOW de
cay, but the Spanish Californians were sensi
BILE architects and its massive walls and par
titions defied the earthquake thrill, and all
the year round kept an even temperature
within.
Victor led Miguel through low ante room
into plainly furnished chamber, where Car
men sat painting.
Now Mistress Carmen was a hit of
painter, in a pretty little way, with all the
vague longings of artist but without,
fear, the artists steadfast soul. She recog-
nized beauty and form as a child might, with
out understanding their meaning. and some
how failed to make them even interpret her
woman's moods, which surely were natures,
too. So she painted everything with this in
nocent lust of the eye-flowers, birds, insects,
landscapes and figures-with joyous fidelity,
but no particular poetry. The birds never
sang to her but one song, the flowers or trees
spake but one language, and her skies never
frightened except in color. She came out
strong on the Catholic saints, and would toss
you up a cleanly-shaven Aloysius, sweetly
destitute of expression, or dropscal lethar-
gic Madonna that you couldn't have told
from an old master, so bad it was Her
faculty of faithful reproduction even showed
itself in fanciful lettering, and latterly in the
imitation of fabrics and signatures. Indeed,
with her eye for beauty Of form. she had al
ways excelled in penmanship at the convent
an accomplishment which the good sisters
held in great repute.
In person she was petite, with a still un-
formed girlish figure. perhaps n little too fat
across the back, and with possibly a too great
tendency to boyish stride in walking. Her
DloN, IoNttCt py biut-OiiCh HdI HuS lOW
and frank and honest: her eyes, a very dark
hazel, were not particularly large, but rather
heavily freighted in their melancholy lids
with sleepless passion; her nose was of that I'M
important character which no man remem-
bers; her mouth was small and straight; her
teeth white and regular. The whole expression
of her face was piquancy that might be SUBJ
dued by tenderness or made malevolent by
anger. AT present it was a salad in which
the oil and vinegar were deftly combined
The astute feminine reader will of course un-
lerstand that this is the ordinary superficial
masculine criticism, and at once make up her
mind both as to the character of the young
lady and the competency of the critic. / only
know that rather liked her. And her func-
tions are somewhat important in this We
racious history.
She looked up, started to her feet, leveled
her black brows at the intruder, but, at
sign from her uncle. showed her white teeth
and spake
1t was only sentence, and rather a CON-
monplace one at that; but if she could have
put her voice upon her canvas, she might
have retrieved the Garcia fortunes. For it
was so musical, so tender, SO sympathizing.
SO melodious, so replete with the graciousness
of womanhood, that she seemed to have in
vented the language. And yet that sentence
was only an exaggerated form of How dye
do whned out, doled out, lisped out, or shot
out from the pretty mouths of my fair coun-
trywomen.
Miguel admired the paintings. He was
struck particularly with crayon drawing Of
a mule @Mother of God, it is the mule ITSELF
observe how it will not CO." Then the crafty
*The Spanish ''rubric" is the complicated -four
ish attached to signature, and is rs individual
and characteristic as the handwriting.
Victor broke in with, "But it is nothing to
her writing; look, you shall tell to me which
is the handwriting of Pho Pico;" and, from
drawer in the secretary, he drew forth two
signatures. One was affixed to a yellowish
paper, the other drawn on plain white fools
cap OF course Miguel took the more mod
ern one with lover-like gallantry. "It is this
is genuine." Victor laughed triumphantly;
Carmen echoed the laugh melodiously in
childlike glee, and added, with a slight toss
of her piquant head, "It is mine!" The best
of the sex will not refuse a just and overdue
compliment from even the man they dislike.
It's the principle they're after, not the senti-
ment
But Victor was not satisfied with this proof
of his riece's skill. "Say to her" he demand
ed of Miguel, "what name thou likest, and it
shall lie done before thee here" Miguel was